And Ontological Inertia
by Youth of Australia
Summary: One year later, Max and Caroline's path crosses with Australian tourists - how much have they changed since they last met? A mild sequel to "And The Same Difference".
1. Chapter 1

As the vast grey city of bridges and skyscrapers rose up into view outside the window, one of the passengers began to rhapsodize.

"Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn! Most populous of the five New York city boroughs! First battle-site of the American Revolution! Home of Coney Island, Jamaica Bay, the New York Post! Unity makes strength! Yes, truly, Brooklyn is a testament to human endeavor, a place of great advancement and prosperity, a panacea for heart and mind in the turbulent global village of today!"

His companion in the seat next to him groaned. "Oh, not this crapheap again!"

The passenger by the window peered over the top of his sunglasses, brushing some colourless hair out of his ruby-red eyes. The albino, almost buried in his long multicoloured scarf and oatmeal jacket was as much of an odd sight as the young Aborigine in the seat beside him. His mane of crude blonde dreadlocks framed an oval face hidden by a pair of tinted pince nez spectacles, while his grey leather jacket and matching pants didn't quite balance out his searing day-glo turquoise T-shirt with the words _LUST DENTIST_ etched across the chest.

"What is it now, Nigel?" complained the albino.

The pair in the seats behind them popped their heads over the top. The one on the left was a mop-haired spaniard with a permanent smirk while on the right-hand was a girl of mixed race with a straight black fringe and long dark hair that gave her a vaguely asian look. "Have you been here before?" she asked.

"That I have, Gabs," Nigel told her. "And it's not an experience I wish to repeat, capice?"

"I bet you got thrown out," leered the spaniard. "Didn't you?"

"As a matter of fact, Chamber, I chose to leave - and I couldn't too that fast enough!" Nigel grimaced in disgust. "You bang all you want about Brooklyn's cultural merit, Doc, but listen to someone who's actually been there. It sucks. It sucks so bad. You might think the second series of Broadchurch sucked but mein gott that was just peanuts to this. There are black holes out there who look on with bare envy at how much this place sucks. The word vacuum does not do it justice. It sucks to a degree that even the word sucks is the simplest way human beings can describe how much it sucks. It sucks, yet it also blows. It's that bad. It sucks to the nth degree. It mega sucks big time."

"Nigel?" asked the albino. "Are you insinuating that Brooklyn sucks?"

Nigel shrugged. "Don't pigeon-hole me, buster."

Gabby turned to the albino. "I thought we were going to Santa Onhorea?" she pointed out. "That's what the tickets say, and I checked and everything."

"Gabby, my dear," the albino sighed, "this is a connecting flight. We'll have to catch another plane to head to the island but until then we're at the heart of this metropolis which Nigel has seen but neglected to tell us about."

"If customs and immigration pull out the guns," Chamber warned, "you're on your own, Nige. I'll swear you've got drugs up your arse if I have to." He frowned. "Might do that anyway. Could be a laugh."

Gabby smacked him over the forehead. "Do that and _I'll_ tell them you spent the whole flight giving out pamphlets about the benefits of Islamic State!"

"They'd use scrolls not pamphlets, bimbo!" Chamber grumbled, fending her off.

"Children, children," the albino tutted. "The fasten-seatbelt sign is on!"

"Lucky escape," Gabby grumbled, climbing back down into her chair.

"This is abuse, you realize?" Chamber told her. "It's not funny or clever, a girl beating a guy up. How would you like it if I started giving you the back of my hand?"

"I'd be amazed you have that motor control," Gabby said sweetly, buckling up. "So, Nige, what happened in Brooklyn? Were there hipsters or something?"

"Oh, I should be so lucky," Nigel sighed, letting his head fall back. "It was a year ago, pretty much back when I was dealing with the previous generation of unbelievably-warped human garbage that _these_ two..." He waved a hand to indicate Chamber and the albino. "...barely outdo for contemptuous stupidity."

"You mean Andrew and Dave?" the albino guessed.

"Oh, what consequence are their names now?" Nigel sneered.

"Must be something," Gabby replied. "You talk about them in your sleep."

Chamber laughed; the albino sniggered.

"My noctural noises are down to the fact their unfashionable idiocy haunts my dreams," Nigel snapped. "Anyway, Dave managed to get us on the wrong plane and we ended up spending the night in the hellhole of Brooklyn, in some squallid pestilential cesspit called Williamsburg. We passed through this filthy cafe run by a transsexual Korean of indeterminate age, along with a bunch of oversexed predators of various ethnic backgrounds. Oh, and there were two lesbians who owned a horse; Dave fell in love of course and ended up trying to kill himself."

"Bloody hell," said the albino.

"Did he die?" asked Chamber, aghast.

Nigel sighed. "Yes, Chamber. He did. All those times you met him since were just his mournful spirit roaming the earth in eternal torment."

"Are you being sarcastic?" Chamber asked. "Because that is a credible explanation - especially given what happened when you..."

"Oi!" said Gabby. "We agreed not to talk about that!"

"Got anything in writing?" Chamber retorted.

"Only those sexts you sent to the coach in _Glee._ "

There was a moment of silence.

"Moving on!" said Chamber suddenly. "So, Dave fell in love with a gay girl and tried to top himself? Doesn't he normally assume girls he's interested in will be gay? Or straight but in a relationship? Or pregnant with triplets to a Ronald McDonald impersonator in Prague."

"Oh, you know Dave," tutted Nigel. "He was always looking for an excuse to open his wrists. That said, those two girls did a number on him. I mean, they broke down every last ounce of self-esteem until he couldn't find a way out. They even," he continued in a confidential tone, "stole his trenchcoat."

The albino was stunned. "The one his mum gave him?"

"The very same."

"Those bitches!" Gabby breathed.

"Like I say," Nigel yawned. "This is the quality of human life we're about to plunge into. I tell you, there is no debauchery or debasement or debauchery in debasement that they won't stoop to. This is an evil place, plain and simple and frankly even if we stay in the airport we might as well be paying an unexpected visit to the cast of the _Hills Have Eyes._ "

"Jeez," Gabby said. "Maybe we should try getting a different plane and going to the island another way?"

The albino shrugged. "All depends what the schedules are like."

The plane began the final approach and the passengers fell silent.

Until Chamber suddenly spluttered, "Wait a minute. Did you say they owned a freaking _horse?!_ "

-x-x-x-

The quartet shuffled directionlessly around the arrivals lounge, trying to get a clear view at the illuminated departures board. All four wore backpacks and clutched their plane tickets tightly in their hands.

"Well, I suppose it's not that bad," said Gabby, glancing around.

"It's very crowded," Nigel told her, "because everyone's trying to get the hell out of here. This must be how the unicorns felt when Noah's Ark was boarding."

Gabby frowned. "Unicorns aren't real."

"That's right, sweetheart, deconstruct my witty allusions," Nigel sighed.

"She's right though," said Chamber.

Nigel rolled his eyes. "All right! Unicorns _aren't_ real! Someone, tell Rupert Murdoch while there's still time!"

"I mean this place isn't as bad as you were saying," Chamber went on. "It's not exactly _Mad Max_ out there, is it?"

" _Mad Max_ is set in Australia," the albino pointed out.

"Rupert, less talking, more finding our flight to the island," Chamber told him shortly. "If we do have to stay around here, it might not be too bad. There are all sorts of hotels built up around airports, I'm sure..."

Nigel glared at him. "Archibald Hetherington Nasty-Face Chamber," he said firmly, "I am not wasting my hard-earned royalties, gambling wins and dole payments on some overpriced-underresourced squat. If we have to stay here, we stay here, right here where at least there is some reasons of international diplomacy for the locals not to knife us to death!"

"So they're Americans, big deal!" complained Chamber. "As long as we stay out of the dark alleys and don't accept sweets from strangers, it can't be any more dangerous than Redfern, can it?"

"I agree with Chamber," said the albino.

"Your three-fifths of an opinion really matter to me, Doc," Nigel said flatly.

"I think you're just missing Andrew and Dave and you don't like being reminded of one of the good times you had here forever."

"Well, _I_ think you're a net-addled facebook-addicted albino who has absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about. I know which sounds more likely."

Chamber grinned. "Hey, let's check out the cafe Nigel whinged about. I bet it's the best ever - there probably aren't even any horse-owning lesbians!"

"Don't stereotype people!" Gabby pouted.

"At the cafe, Gabs," Chamber explained.

"Oh."

"Tomorrow there's a flight strait to Santa Onhorea," the albino said, nodding to the indicator board. "We can be there much quicker if we stay here for the night rather than trying to find another route. Plus, apparently there's a branch of the High here that's doing really well."

"The High?" Nigel arched an eyebrow. "Some kind of medical marijuana chain?"

"It's a cake shop. The latest thing - branches of it everywhere."

"At least it's not a _cupcake_ shop," Nigel muttered.

"I thought you liked cupcakes," Gabby said.

"I do, I do. Australian cupcakes. Not American ones." Nigel stretched and yawned. "Ok, Doctor Spoon, Chamber, you sod off and get us some consumable confectionaries and we'll stay here."

"But I thought I might take a look around," said Gabby.

"Oh, just need to show you something first, Gabs," Nigel pleaded.

"Come along, Chamber," said the albino brightly. "Let's get to the High."

Chamber trugded along beside him. "That doesn't sound as cool as you think it does, Rupert," he told him as they made their way along the concourse.

Gabby opened her mouth to speak, but Nigel held up a silencing finger while he craned his neck and looked at their departing companions. "...they're gone. Thank Christ for that. That's 72 hours non-stop with that inbred sitcom double-act! I can't take any more! Come on, girl, let's just ditch them!"

Gabby was taken aback. "Just leave them here?"

"Why not? They've got their luggage, their tickets. They're old enough and ugly enough to look after themselves!"

"They're younger than we are!"

"OK, they're _not_ old enough, but they're certainly ugly enough! Come on, Gabbs, we can catch up with them on Santa Onhorea, can't we?"

Gabby turned to the indicator board. "But there aren't any flights yet..."

"Hence my cunning and devious plan," Nigel assured her, waving his tickets. "We take a connecting flight and take our own little detour. If Spoon and Chamber want to loiter with intent in Brooklyn, we can do it somewhere better."

"Like?"

"Gay Parry!" Nigel said, indicating one of the flights to France. "The city of light and love and art and..." He trailed off, then shrugged. "...bagets! Come on, love of mine, let us get away from those ghastly flatmates of ours and revel in each other's company!"

Gabby glanced in the direction the others took. "I guess it would be nice. I mean, I've always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. They say it's got _three_ different shades of paint so it looks exactly the same colour. Random, huh?"

"Random and completely uninteresting," Nigel agreed. "But you and me, Gabs, we're going to go _Euro-trip!_ And I'm not suggesting we get drunk on absinthe and have sex with our own relatives..."

"You sure?" Gabby asked doubtfully. "You still fancy your stepsister."

"Pah! Purely animal attraction!" Nigel assured her. "Yes, I'd bang her like a dunny door in a cyclone, but _you're_ the girl I actually want to be with."

Gabby smiled. "Wow. That's really romantic. For you, I mean. From anyone else it'd be a real insult." She took his hand. "But I'm up for it."

Nigel lowered his shades, letting the genuine affection in his mud-brown eyes be seen. "I truly love it when you say those words in that order, Gabrielle McCormick. Now, come on, the next flight to France is boarding now!"

Hand-in-hand, the young couple started to fight their way through the crowds towards the the departure gate.

-x-x-x-

Their tickets allowed them two adjoining seats in the coach class of the plane to France. Nigel was glad; the last few flights had kept him stuck to the other two of their party, neither of whose company he enjoyed as much as his girlfriend. Perhaps if it had been Andrew or Dave, things might have been different... He forced his thoughts away from that. The only way up was forward. No regrets.

Gabby had the window seat while Nigel took the aisle. They'd managed to somehow arrive before most of the other passengers and as they sat others came in and took their seats. Gabby was dozing off by the time the doors were shut.

Nigel was about to snooze off himself when one of the passengers sitting right behind them cried, "I'm so stoked! I've never been in first class!"

That voice sounded strangely familiar...

An equally-familiar voice said, "Except, Max, this is coach."

Nigel's eyes widened and he licked his dry lips.

"I got a refund on one ticket and traded in the other to buy two coach tickets and to pay for a cheap hotel..."

"I'm so stoked - I've never been in coach!"

Nigel quite calmly opened his mouth as wide as his jaw would allow, shoved most of his fist inside his mouth and sunk his teeth into his knuckles.

The noise from the passengers behind them woke Gabby up. She sniffed, blinked and then noticed her boyfriend was seemingly trying to bite off his own hand. She frowned and sat up. "Hey, what is it?" she asked, concerned.

Nigel looked across at her, the picture of innocence depite his attempt at self-cannibalism. Carefully, he took the hand from his mouth and shot her a smile that was so calculated to be winning even Gabby saw through it.

"Hmmm?" he said, trying not to let anyone here his voice.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Nigel shook his head slightly too enthusiastically. "No, no," he said in a faint, breathless tone of blind panic. "Everything's cool right now." He stared at the seat ahead of him for a while. "Might be some problems _later,_ " he added weakly, "but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it..."

Behind him, Max Black yelled to the stewardess at the top of her voice. "Hey, can I trade this in for a beer?"

\- to be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

As the plane soared up into the murky foggy clouds of the upper sky, Max Black let herself sink even further into the comfort of her seat and took her time knocking back the bottle of beer, making it last for at least a good eight seconds before it was bone dry. She let out a beer-scented sigh of satisfaction across the top of the bottle neck so the empty vessel moaned like a cheap whore with very low personal standards.

"Oh yeah, this is what I'm talking about," she said to Caroline. "I've never poisoned my liver at this altitude before - at least, not of my own free will. The last time I tried air travel, it was just like _Snakes on a Plane._ Except there were less reptiles, more gangbanging and slightly more convincing dialogue."

Caroline, as always, laughed at her friend's jokes but at the same time worried as to how much truth was contained within. "Well, there are no poisonous reptiles on this trip."

"Nope, they'll be all waiting at the airport with their bagets and neckscarves and onion necklaces and stripy shirts and berets and garlic bicycles..."

"Maaax," sighed Caroline. "Don't get bogged down in stereotypes."

"Hey, if the French didn't want to be stereotyped then they should have done something about it at the time!" Max rejoindered. "You know someone actually reprogrammed google so if you search for ' _French military victories_ ' it always asks you ' _do you mean French military defeats_ '?"

"Which is completely inaccurate," Caroline argued. "France won more wars than most of Europe put together."

"Well, no one remembered those when Groundskeeper Willie called them a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys," Max retorted. "Defeated by a one liner in an nineties cartoon? Yeah, I totally call that a military defeat!"

Caroline gave her an appraising look. "You know, Max, I think you'll like France. It'll be your spiritual home."

Max arched an eyebrow. "Why? Because the locals are all alcoholic sex-obsessed pleasure seekers who spend all day complaining about things?" Her eyes widened. "Oh my god! This _is_ the promised land! Caroline! I need a prayer mat! I know I thought I was Jewish before but these, _these_ are my people!"

Max closed her eyes and started to warble the opening tune of _All You Need Is Love_ by the Beatles, which was the closest to any French music she could think of at the moment. She made up for her lack of inspiration with sheer volume.

x-x-x

Gabby was startled slightly by the woman in the seat behind her suddenly belting out the French national anthem with the same articulation and enthusiasm as Babe the pig la-laaing _Jingle Bells._ So, naturally Gabby found it both sweet and needlessly loud. Still, she'd grown up next to a railway line and random bursts of wordless noise were borderline comforting.

She looked across at her boyfriend who was staring blindly ahead and gripping his armrests like the plane was plunging out of control. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, apart from the noxious noise pollution bursting my eardrums? Nothing at all, Gabs," said Nigel. "I'm just sick of all this air travel. Tell you what, let's make like a comotose patient on life support and snooze through the whole thing."

So saying, he started fumbling through his pockets until he found a rather dull and nondescript looking foil packet of dull and nondescript pills. Gabby recognized them as experimental muscle relaxants that she'd been part of a trial; they were meant to deal with the physical side effects of severe anxiety. In practice, they were industrial-grade sleeping pills that could knock you out for days at a time.

"Taste the rainbow, Ponch!" he proclaimed for some reason and shoved a pill in his mouth. "Next stop: Paris airport!"

"Nigel, what's up?" asked Gabby, worried.

"Up? Nothing's up!" lied Nigel unconvincing. "I just feel a little tense."

"Oh. Coz you look a _lot_ tense."

"Gabs, your perspicacity is an aphrodisiac in and of itself."

Gabby frowned. "You're saying me noticing stuff gets you horny?"

Nigel beamed at her. "You see! You're even able to understand what I'm saying half the time - I always said you were intelligent."

"The teachers didn't," Gabby sighed. "Everyone else at school thought I was stupid."

"Pah," Nigel said. "You were ignorant and uneducated, but you're not stupid and you never have been. Hey, Gabs, maybe we can get married in Paris?"

Gabby blinked. "Seriously?"

"Why not? It is the City of Love..."

"But you said marriage was a prehistoric social convention implemented solely to maintain tribal equilibrium in the face of the sheer pointlessness of existence."

"Oh yeah, I did," Nigel conceded, a wave of grogginess washing over him.

Gabby knew the symptoms of the drug kicking in. "C'mon," she said, unbuckling her belt. "We're swapping seats."

Nigel blinked, shuddered and snapped out of his daze. "What? Why?"

"I want the aisle seat."

"You love the window seat!"

"Yeah, but you're about to go comatose, and I don't want to have to climb over you every time I need the dunny, do I?"

Fastidiously, Nigel undid his belt and they shuffled awkwardly around until Gabby was in the aisle and Nigel was standing by the window. "Honestly, Gabs, you shouldn't overreact like this - it's just a muscle relaxant, it's not like I've-"

Suddenly Nigel fell face-first into the window seat, his limbs going so slack it looked like every bone in his body had turned into overcooked spaghetti. Nigel's face was buried in the gap between the seat and the wall, his bum in the air.

Gabby sighed, shook her head, and decided she could use the toilet before getting the hassle of dragging Nigel's unconscious body into an upright position.

x-x-x

"I mean, I suppose the idea that your biological father could have been some randy French guy on a sex holiday in America is actually pretty credible," Caroline was saying as she finished off her champagne.

Max rolled her eyes. "Oh, puh-lease. Knowing my mother, he didn't have a passport. Or teeth. Or maybe not even a pulse. Not everyone swoons over Frenchies like you, you know."

Caroline sighed. "You have to bring Nicholaus into it," she grumbled. "Seems like such a long time ago - Nicholas, pastry school, Deke, that crazy lady secretary who's name completely escapes me at the moment. Our whole lives were going somewhere totally different. And then before that, the cupcake shop and Candy Andy and the puppet law-suits..."

Max groaned. "Yay, I love to listen to an itemized list of all our failures and shattered dreams. It's like the twitter feed of the damned."

Caroline shook off her despondency. "You're right. The past is the past."

"Mind you, wasn't it wierd to bump into Big Mary again?" Max admitted. "Normally once they're out of sight they're out of mind. Unlike my boobs, which shall outlast any of your so-called human civilization." She frowned. "Don't tell me that Paris is going to be full of all your white-collar upper-class also-ran high society freaks because I'll have to itemize all the humiliating and shameful things Princess Channing has been up to for the last half-decade."

"Oh, Max, don't pretend you haven't already done that."

"I might have missed a few cinnamon buns, unlike you with your newest uncontrolled addictions," Max shrugged. "Nah, I'm kidding. I penciled those in a while back. Plus, I'm hoping that no one in France knows who we are - especially Interpol. It'll make smuggling stuff through customs way easier."

"Um... Max?"

"Trust me, I once shoplifted a Christmas turkey once wearing only a bikini. Would have been more impressive if I'd succeeded, or indeed actually wanted the turkey in the first place but the..."

"Max, there's a hand between your legs."

Max blinked and looked at her own hands. "Well, it's not me for once."

Caroline waved her own hands. "Not me, it's the guy in the chair ahead of you."

Max peered down between her knees and saw a chocolate-coloured forearm poking from between the seat and the wall, the limp hand proffered out as if for Max to shake politely. "Wow, I thought this sort of executive relief was for first class passengers," she commented.

Caroline leaned forward. "Hey, excuse me?" she called frostily. "Hey, Max, I think he might be unconscious?"

"Pfft. Amateur!" sneered Max. "You're not supposed to take the roofie yourself, that is page frickken one! Hey!" she yelled, kicking at the seat in front of you. "I'll give you points for effort in unusual situations instead of just trying to grope me in an elevator, but minus several for practical results!"

Caroline rose from her chair, realizing that despite their initial assumptions the passenger ahead of them wasn't trying to cop a feel. She leaned around the chair and saw a crumpled blond-haired figure crushed into the corner. Caroline tugged on the figure's shoulder and rolled him until his back was in the chair and she could see his face.

"Oh my god, Max!" Caroline gasped.

"Is it Samuel L Jackson?" asked Max hopefully.

"No! It's Nigel! That Australian jerkass with more product in his hair than Big Mary has grinder profiles!"

"No way!" Eyes as wide as saucers, Max leapt to her feet and looked over the chair to see the unconscious Aborigine sprawled in the chair. "Oh my god, he looks even _more_ nauseating than I remember!"

"I don't believe it, Max!" Caroline breathed. "What are the odds that we would all just randomly get onto the same plane at the same time practically in the same seats?"

"Uh, let me think," said Max. "Given that it actually happened? One in one. Now, let's discuss the odds that we steal his wallet, dump his lifeless body in the toilet and make him miss his flight to Paris together!"

"Max, we can't do that! It's needlessly cruel and vindictive behavior that brings us entirely down to his level," Caroline argued.

"OK, those are pros, now what are the cons?" asked Max. "Come on, us finding him senseless and vulnerable like this just has to be sign!"

"No," said Caroline, sitting down beside Max. "We are not going to risk getting arrested by some air marshall just in the hope we can humiliate some guy we barely know for some disgusting behavior he displayed one night merely a year ago."

Max looked across to the air stewardesses. "I bet Bonnie and Ronnie would be up for it - they'd probably do it for us, free of charge and even know where to put him in cargo so he wouldn't get found for days."

Caroline flashed her pearly white grin. "OK then!"

\- to be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

Nigel shifted restlessly in his seat and half-formed a thought damning airline seats for being so uncomfortable. In fact, he couldn't think of a single plane seat he'd actually been in that had been comfortable. How long had he been traveling on planes anyway?

"Air jungles? Sky jellyfish?"

"What's wrong with that idea?"

"Let's start with 'everything' and then work our way up."

"Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Dave and Andrew. Nigel would recognize their voices anywhere. Yes, they were on the plane with him. He cracked open an eye and was unsurprised to seem them talking to each other. Part of him registered it looked more like the top deck of a Tangara train than an airplane, but he was tired.

"So," Andrew was saying as he tossed popcorn chicken into his mouth, "the airman finds out that the sky jellyfish can't exist in the lower atmosphere, the pressure crushes them or something. So as long as he can drop to the right altitude, they can't reach him..."

"...but the jellyfish are clever and get underneath his plane so he can't escape and the last thing people find is his diary entry because, of course, even when being attacked by flying sky jellyfish tearing him apart he is capable of writing a _very_ detailed diary entry explaining it all," grunted Dave.

"Oh." Andrew blinked. "You've heard it?"

"Read it, yes. And you wanted to discuss hideous air disasters while we're on a plane? Why?"

"I thought a spooky story would lighten the atmosphere," Andrew admitted. "Besides, it was either that or watch _Daddy Day-Care_ on the inflight films."

Nigel groaned. "Would you two keep it down?" he complained.

"Why?" asked Dave, smoking a cigarette even though he was not a smoker. "Did we happen to ruin a lovely dream you were having?"

Nigel tried to get more comfortable and failed. "As a matter of fact, it was a harrowing nightmare! A living hell! There were these two American lesbians with a horse and..."

"That actually happened," Dave reminded him.

"It is a poor memory that only works backwards, the Queen remarked," Andrew quoted in his baritone voice. "Maurice Glietzman, _Misery Guts_."

"What? That was Lewis Carrol with _Alice in Wonderland_!" Nigel protested.

"Oh, you remember that, do you?" Andrew scoffed. "What else?"

"I was on a plane with them," Nigel said, trying to get the arm rests from under his legs. "Oh, and Gabby was there. She finally got back and..."

"Gabby?" Dave snorted.

"Punching above your weight there," Andrew agreed, putting down his knitting.

"Hey," Nigel growled. "As she is actually alive, not a junkie, has boobs large enough she's not mistaken for a twelve-year-old boy, nor a rampant fetish for Ronald McDonald, plus is heterosexual and understands how condoms work she is a better catch than either of you two have managed!"

Dave blew a smokescreen and his monocle reflected the fireplace. "Got to admit it there, bro," he said in an American accent. "He's got us there."

"And we were in this festering period of hallucinatory phenomena?" asked Andrew.

"No, in actual fact something hideously ironic had happened to you both and I was never going to see you again," Nigel replied smugly. "Well, no one was ever going to see you again unless they found the bodies but... what are you doing?"

He wasn't on an uncomfortable seat. The seats had unfolded, transformer style and were now plush-covered androids carrying him away. A V-shaped chunk of upholstery had slid up on their rectangular torsoes to reveal burning orange eyes. "This is stupid! Who ordered the wierd chair robots from that Ninja Turtle comic no one ever bothered to publish?" Nigel demanded, confident he would be understood.

"Rule one about dealing with reality," the first chair-bot said. "Ask no questions, tell no lies, take no chances."

"Rule two, never go for the chicken," agreed the second. "Hey, is it true that the pilot have their own special meals?"

"Oh yeah," said an air hostess. "It means we know exactly which ones to spit in."

"Isn't that a bit risky?" asked the chair bot in her perky, whiny voice.

"Not if you hock it right," replied the second in her deeper, smiling voice.

Something smacked hard into Nigel's temple. He couldn't cry out or flinch; his body felt like some enterprising young soul had given him a total blood transfusion and replaced all the red stuff with liquid cement.

But he was wide awake now, like a corpse that was somehow completely conscious of what was happening. Two air hostesses who would never see the side of jailbait again in their lifetimes were leading him up an aisle to where the bathrooms were. And he was being carried by... by two girls he never wanted to see again.

He wanted to scream and fight or even just black out again.

But it seemed things weren't going to be that easy.

x-x-x

"I was sure this was going to be a lot easier in my head," Max told Caroline as they carried the lifeless sack of Nigel towards the toilets. "Oh, the number of times guys have told me that..."

Caroline tried not laugh. "He's a dead weight. How much further till the disabled toilets?" she asked Bonnie. "Cause I think I'm about to pull muscles that might come in handy some time..."

Ronnie cradled Nigel's face in her hand, peeling back one of his eyelids. "He'll be out for the count for at least three hours. We can just dump him in the nearest one and come back later," she reported.

"Yeah, but remember to flush this time," Bonnie told her and laughed tipsily.

As they steered him towards the nearest bathroom, Ronnie asked, "So what exactly did this chocolate-coloured stud do to you two?"

"He was mainly just a jerk," Caroline said. "I mean, he didn't rape or murder or pistol-whip anyone but he was a jerk. There was this lovely kid we knew called Dave and this guy drove him to suicide."

"Though in fairness Dave was already hitchhiking in that general direction," Max said. "Oh, and if we got a dollar for each time he made offensive sexual remarks about us, we could probably buy this plane."

"Wow," said Bonnie. "That's pretty dark."

"Nah, we saved Dave in the end," said Max grandly. "It was kind of our good karma for the next thirty years. I bet if we'd just let him go, we'd have got a lot more out of the last year."

"That's a point, Max," grunted Caroline as they approached the door.

"Is it? Where?"

"Where's Dave and Andrew?" Caroline said. "It'd be nice to see them again."

"No it wouldn't," Max retorted. "The fact they've ditch this tool shows how much they've grown as people during the last year."

There was a distinctive roaring flush from the bathroom.

"Oops," said Bonnie. "Occupado..."

The door opened and a young woman stepped out. She stopped as she saw the two hostesses and their companions carrying a semi-unconscious body.

"Uh, hi," said the woman.

"Hi," said Ronnie smoothly. "Don't mind us, just dealing with a passenger who seems to have gotten a little tired and emotional..."

"Yeah, I kind of get that," agreed the woman. "But I'd really prefer it if you just took him back to his seat and let him sleep it off."

"Why?" Max asked suspiciously. "Do you know him?"

"Yeah. We're sort of... engaged."

There was a long moment of silence.

"You could do _so_ much better," said Caroline eventually.

"I get told that a lot," Gabby agreed.


End file.
